The Member of the Board of Directors of ANACOM, Paula Meira Lourenço, represented Portugal at the 2018 edition of the World Summit on the Information Society Forum (WSIS Forum), which took place in Geneva. She took part in a high-level session on "WSIS Action Line and the 2030 Agenda", on the 20th, the second day of the forum, which ended the following day.
Paula Meira Lourenço described some recent initiatives embarked on by ANACOM, notably all the work carried out following the forest fires of 2017 that was designed to protect people and electronic communications infrastructure. The working group set up by ANACOM to coordinate these matters was also mentioned in this context.
The ANACOM director also referred to the national promotion effort of the WiFi4EU program, an initiative of the European Commission to encourage Internet connectivity in local communities with the aid of financial support from the European Union in the framework of the Connecting Europe Facility.
Finally, Paula Meira Lourenço was able to share key elements of the national strategy for digital transformation.
Participation in the WSIS Forum also allowed several bilateral meetings to be held, and ANACOM was able to discuss its efforts to encourage competition in the provision of networks and services and in ensuring access to networks, infrastructure and services.
The WSIS Forum is an outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which took place in two stages (Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005) and defined a number of concepts and policies for placing information and communication technology (ICT) at the service of global development. In particular, the Tunis Agenda (2005) reiterated the benefits of ICT in citizens' lives and made a commitment to develop mechanisms to combat the digital divide by establishing a set of specialized lines of action.
The WSIS Forum, which takes place annually in a multi-stakeholder format, intends to monitor the implementation of the WSIS action lines.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has traditionally played a key role in organizing this event, in partnership with other United Nations agencies.
High-level session on "WSIS Action Line and the 2030 Agenda".
Further information:
- WSIS Forum 2018 https://www.itu.int/net4/wsis/forum/2018/
